Pass rush remains area of biggest concern for Eagles

Eagles cornerback Curtis Marsh talking about improvements he¿s made in his game this year.

Eagles cornerback Curtis Marsh talking about improvements he¿s made in his game this year.

Nick Fierro, Of The Morning Call

— Whether the Philadelphia Eagles stayed true to their draft board in May or reached just a little to select outside linebacker Marcus Smith out of Louisville might never be known to anyone outside their war room.

What cannot be debated is their obvious desperation to improve their pass rush as they continue to re-shape the defense they inherited to a 3-4 base under head coach Chip Kelly and defensive coordinator Billy Davis.

Doesn't matter to them if the extra pressure they seek comes from up the middle, outside or blanket pass coverage that forces quarterbacks into holding the ball too long. All they know is that they didn't generate enough against the pass last year, and that if they continue along that path, they likely will never be more than what they are now: a one-and-done playoff team that still winds up closer to the bottom of each year's draft order than the top.

To that end, they're trying to be less predictable in their base, getting converted ends Trent Cole and his backup, Brandon Graham, more comfortable in pass coverage, which is something they previously did only on rarer zone-blitz calls.

But they want their ends, despite being responsible for two gaps now instead of one, to get their share, along with their inside linebackers and their secondary when blitzes are called.

Last season, Davis was limited in the number of exotic calls he could make to create numbers mismatches up front because of a conservative approach ordered by Kelly ("Just don't let them throw it over our heads") and an inability to break through and cause a suitable amount of chaos when they would send extra rushers.

This put extra pressure on a secondary that still came through with 13 of the 19 interceptions the team had last season en route to 31 takeaways, third most in the NFL.

Conversely, Cole's eight sacks led the team, which only had 37. And all of Cole's sacks were achieved in the second half of the season. The next highest total was five, by fellow starting outside linebacker Connor Barwin.

Those numbers need to come up, along with those of the inside players. And there has to be a balance too.

"You really can't get it to come from one spot," Barwin said. "You need it to come from here and there to really keep teams from picking up on what you're doing."

So as training camp hit full gear this past week, this remained perhaps the most important priority for the Eagles as they head toward their preseason opener Friday night at Chicago, where they won't do anything fancy even if they see obvious areas to exploit.

"Not only in practice, but in the preseason games when you go to call a game, you have a choice of blitzing on a third-and-long or running a four-man rush with coverage," Davis said. "You're going to run the four-man rush with coverage so you can see if a pass-rusher can rush the passer.

"When you overload or blitz, protection breakdowns happen all of a sudden, Marcus Smith has three sacks in a preseason game, but he's unblocked versus a four-man rush [in which] he's got to beat a tackle to win. You have a better evaluation when you keep it simple.

"Your cover guys have to cover a little longer when you're only rushing four, so you are saying: How good of a cover guy is he in a preseason?" Davis said.

"So that same mentality goes to practice. I truly want to see if we can rush the passer and we have, let's say, Marcus on [left tackle] Jason Peters. If I blitz it, could change a protection. If I run the four-man rush, I get to see and get the kid better. So in that area, it does kind of dictate how you call."

In other words, the one-on-one battles will mean a lot more until the start of the regular season, so the coaches will try to create as much of them as they can through the rest of the month.

With a year of experience under their belts comes more expectations. Though Davis wouldn't place a number on what would be acceptable or what would not, the relatively minuscule sack total they generated last year has to be greatly improved upon for this group to start reaping rewards.

"I want the defensive unit to disrupt the timing and rhythm of that quarterback and hit him as often as we can," Davis said. "Who it comes from? … I think we've got a lot of guys that have the skill set that they can get it done. They all understand the defense better this year. I think they will play a little faster and a little more reckless in their pass rush because they understand a lot more specifically.

"It's comfortable to them now. I don't think a year ago early in the season it was comfortable. Now they know they know. They know what their responsibility is. So I anticipate the group as a whole will be better individually and collectively in rushing the passer."